The ETF Battle Between Gold and Bitcoin: Is BTC Really Losing?

Spot Bitcoin ETFs lost over $8 billion in weeks. However, one gold ETF lost more than than in just a single month.

2026 has been quite interesting and unexpected in terms of investments. Gold and silver started the year strong with massive gains and new all-time highs, while BTC has been mostly trading downward.

While bitcoin’s correction intensified after the January rejection at $95,000, the two largest precious metals tumbled as well. Perhaps a large portion of gold’s losses could be attributed to how investors turned on the largest ETF tracking its performance.

Will GLD Stage a Comeback?

Data provided by the analysts at the Kobeissi Letter indicated that the world’s largest gold-backed ETF, World Gold Council’s GLD, has seen a substantial investor exodus that began in March this year. In the span of just the third month of the year, the financial vehicle lost a whopping $8.5 billion. This became the largest monthly withdrawal in GLD’s 22-year history.

This worrying trend eased to an extent in the following months, but red continued to dominate. Investors pulled out $1.7 billion in April, a more modest $872 million in May, and $3.2 billion in June. The mid-month data for July shows that the withdrawals have dropped to under $50 million, prompting the analysts to speculate whether the gold market is “setting up for a comeback.”

BREAKING: The largest US gold-backed ETF, $GLD, has recorded -$14.4 billion in outflows since March 1st.

This is 50% more than the -$9.6 billion in outflows seen across all Bitcoin ETFs since the October peak.

In March alone, investors withdrew -$8.5 billion from $GLD, the… pic.twitter.com/0Wvwlqxpxi

— The Kobeissi Letter (@KobeissiLetter) July 16, 2026

These net outflows coincided with gold’s price collapse. The bullion peaked at $5,600/oz in late January, but it has lost nearly 30% of its value since then, declining to $4,000/oz as of Friday’s close.

BTC ETFs Bleed Too

With roughly $130 billion in AuM, GLD is more than twice as big as all spot Bitcoin ETFs combined. As such, it’s rather difficult to compare the respective net outflows. Nevertheless, the ongoing narrative is that investors have turned on BTC, which is supported by the recent negative streak that began in May.

You may also like:

In the span of approximately two months, investors pulled out just over $8 billion from all BTC ETFs, pushing the cumulative total net inflows down to $51.22 billion from $59.34 billion. June was the worst month, with over $4.5 billion leaving the funds, which was more than GLD’s exodus.

Perhaps it’s no surprise that the underlying asset’s price performance has been quite painful within this timeframe. BTC was rejected at $83,000 when the withdrawal wave began in mid-May, and plunged to a multi-year low of $57,700 on July 1. Although it has recovered some ground since then, the ETFs’ behavior remains highly uncertain to support a more profound rally.